I generally find that type of anime horrid. It has to have another aspect to it that's powerful enough for me to forgive the bad stuff. The impossible "fall down" scenes and the improbable nudity scenes and whatnot. Gets old fast.

I find romantic comedies to be the best in my opinion and I generally don't dislike harem anime. I have a lot of patience for anime, having dredged through (by my MAV account's count) 343 anime so far.

Also

"...their main focus is to show us anything ecchi. Maid scenes. Shower scenes. Loli scenes. All this bullshit."

nyanekomimiwrote:
I do understand that point, I really don't get why the writers make the boy so clueless sometimes. I can almost come across as stupid!

Because they can't have the main character getting busy with the female characters. The other easy choice would be to make the main character gay, and that obviously isn't going to work well for a character that is meant to be the viewer surrogate.

Believe it or not, guys can actually be that clueless. I should know, since I was at that age (and probably still am, although it isn't an issue now).

I actually like Harem animes ... but then again, I've only seen a couple of them. My genres in anime vary GREATLY, so I watch a bit of everything ... I guess maybe I just haven't over watched it like you (OP) seem to have done. But then again, too much of anything is a bad thing, so while yes most of the things you said are true, I like it. Of course it could also be that I'm a girl, so that kind of gives me a different perspective on it.

Harem anime is largely dead to me now. Too much fanservice, too many shitty protagonists, too much oneitis, too much padding. Too many beta males who feel ashamed to be men. Why the hell do they write such bad characters? They need to grow some fucking balls!

Pervy characters don't do it for me either. Heaven's Lost Property is a textbook example of how not to write a lead guy. It got old so fast.

hmmmm i really cant fully agree with the idea of this thread. The reason why is because most anime can fall into there own type of formula. Lets say shounen anime seems to always have the "you powered up so now i will power up" or " the hero comes back even more powerful after being defeated" an so on. To say 95% of the harem sucks is just your opinion and its not the same for everyone else. There already been posted several harems that other people enjoyed for whatever personal reason. As for me i rather liked Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai a.k.a Haganai.

Yeah, most harem are just horrible rehashes of the same shit..
There are some good ones, but in those cases the harem isn't the main plot/genre.

The Negimamanga is a good example of an acceptable harem.
Harem obviously plays a large role in Negima, but the main focus in the series is the rivalry between two lads*.
Not to mention other things like finding a lost father, and saving a whole world's worth if people from being tossed into the harsh surface of Mars.

TheAncientOnewrote:
Because they can't have the main character getting busy with the female characters. The other easy choice would be to make the main character gay, and that obviously isn't going to work well for a character that is meant to be the viewer surrogate.

Believe it or not, guys can actually be that clueless. I should know, since I was at that age (and probably still am, although it isn't an issue now).

There are plenty of other options for male characters instead being clueless fops who spout nosebleeds at the sight of underwear and gets embarrassed and uncomfortable because they accidentally touched fingertips while sitting next to each other on a park bench.

For one, the character could just be loyal to whoever the main love interest is. Two, the character could be focused on a greater goal and not want to divide his attention on women for the time being. Three, the character could simply have difficulty choosing and not want to hurt anyone until he can decide. Four, the character can just not want to deal with the drama that these girls are trying to thrust on him. And that's just off the top of my head in the 30 seconds it took me to type this. Surely someone getting paid for pretending to be a professional writer could come up with even more.

Oh and of course let's not forget five, the character could get busy with the females. I was that age once too, ya know. And back then, I had a lot of friends who were also that age. We all made a lot of morally bankrupt choices. But at the time, we had fun making them. And if a hot girl threw herself at one of us, there was some fumbling. Some mistakes. Sometimes it went all the way, sometimes it didn't. But one thing that absolutely never did and never would happen, would be one us attempting to flee in terror while demanding that she put her clothes back on.

Sometimes feelings got hurt, some times drama ensued, sometimes we got away scott free. I believe that's what people call "interesting" in the land of TV shows. It's not like anyone ever got stabbed to death and had their head carried around in a duffle bag. The best forms of entertainment are those that we can relate to. I challenge you to find me one actual living person who can relate to a character who runs away with a bloody nose after the beautiful girl he's in love with tries to kiss him.

Generalizing an entire genre and not looking at the individual shows is just like what people do to music all the time. The word "harem" being in a shows description suddenly makes it an entirely bad show in the persons perspective, making them not even give the show a chance and hating it for generic reasons that may not even apply to it because of this idealistic view of the genre. The word itself becomes a taboo, and in reality, there's nothing necessarily good that comes from this, only negativity.

I love a show because it is well written, has great characters, and is simply something I can't keep myself from watching. I am sure there's shows like this for me in every single genre regardless if I have found them or not. And I will never hate the entirety of something because it's associated with a word.

That depends. If its harem and ecchi, then most likely it will suck(because they try to compensate for a bad story line with boobs). Just harem can be incredibly good though. Take for instant "The World God Only Knows". One of the best animes i have seen, and its a harem.

Negima was written by the same person who did Love Hina and AI Love You, both of which infuriated me by just thinking when are they actually gonna grow some balls and make things happen. But the Manga of Negima, while starting out like another Harem anime, with 30 girls no less, actually develops into a really interesting story with humor and every now and then a little bit of ecchi just to remind you where it started.

Actually I don't mind ecchi at all, it's the lack of progress and/or teasing that infuriates me. And the main lead, Negi is a 10 yr old boy so you already know nothing sexual is actually going to happen but he does get to kiss the girls, as part of the magic pacts he forms over the course of the story. But quickly you'll see that's not what the real story is about, it's Negi's progress as a magician and his quest to find out about his father. It's gone on for more than 30 manga volumes now and I doubt any Harem story has made it that far on the standard tropes alone.

While the Original anime didn't go far enough to show the proper plot behind it, I do like what they did with the last couple of dvds to round it off. the first 4 dvds are mostly following the manga, with some alterations. The last 2 go off in a slightly different direction, almost none of it happens in the manga but it rounds off the story well in an impressive finale, showing a lot of the future pacts that happen in the manga and acting as a kickstarter to show you what you're missing.

One quick note, do not watch the 're-imagined' anime of Negima or Negima Neo manga. They're Akamatsu having a little fun and making it more like his other works but with more silly antics and whacky mistakes. Almost all of which would have got him turned into an Ermine before the end of the first week if it had been in the original story. Fans will know what I'm talking about.

TheAncientOnewrote:
Because they can't have the main character getting busy with the female characters. The other easy choice would be to make the main character gay, and that obviously isn't going to work well for a character that is meant to be the viewer surrogate.

Believe it or not, guys can actually be that clueless. I should know, since I was at that age (and probably still am, although it isn't an issue now).

There are plenty of other options for male characters instead being clueless fops who spout nosebleeds at the sight of underwear and gets embarrassed and uncomfortable because they accidentally touched fingertips while sitting next to each other on a park bench.

For one, the character could just be loyal to whoever the main love interest is. Two, the character could be focused on a greater goal and not want to divide his attention on women for the time being. Three, the character could simply have difficulty choosing and not want to hurt anyone until he can decide. Four, the character can just not want to deal with the drama that these girls are trying to thrust on him. And that's just off the top of my head in the 30 seconds it took me to type this. Surely someone getting paid for pretending to be a professional writer could come up with even more.

Oh and of course let's not forget five, the character could get busy with the females. I was that age once too, ya know. And back then, I had a lot of friends who were also that age. We all made a lot of morally bankrupt choices. But at the time, we had fun making them. And if a hot girl threw herself at one of us, there was some fumbling. Some mistakes. Sometimes it went all the way, sometimes it didn't. But one thing that absolutely never did and never would happen, would be one us attempting to flee in terror while demanding that she put her clothes back on.

Sometimes feelings got hurt, some times drama ensued, sometimes we got away scott free. I believe that's what people call "interesting" in the land of TV shows. It's not like anyone ever got stabbed to death and had their head carried around in a duffle bag. The best forms of entertainment are those that we can relate to. I challenge you to find me one actual living person who can relate to a character who runs away with a bloody nose after the beautiful girl he's in love with tries to kiss him.

It may be over dramatized and the nosebleed idea is more japan-based but the core idea is still true. There's all different types of guys both irl and in anime so one person's experiences don't over-ride another person's. As for your examples of alternatives, they have been used before and will again but as I said before for every 'loyal to one girl' type there's a 'can't choose between them' type both in irl and in anime.